I drifted into a chatroom on the day Bob Kane died, to find a poster declaring "We've lost another comic book giant!"

"Oh," I responded, "who died besides Bob Kane?"

This unleashed a small tsunami of bile against me from others in the "room," and my giving them the actual history did nothing to diminish their rage. For a while, I even had to put up with grumblings that I was "jealous" of Kane.*

Perhaps this film will be in some respects educational.

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* This was a pet word at the time. Any complaint or criticism was based on "jealousy."

The backdoor is...wait. If you want to come by it honestly (as in Hulu paid for the product so you should subscribe or wait) then wait until it's released as a DVD. If it never is, then subscribe to get their content or feel OK that you'll never watch it. But don't look for a free way to watch it thus not paying the people who made it in the first place.

The backdoor is...wait. If you want to come by it honestly (as in Hulu paid for the product so you should subscribe or wait) then wait until it's released as a DVD. If it never is, then subscribe to get their content or feel OK that you'll never watch it. But don't look for a free way to watch it thus not paying the people who made it in the first place.

How much of a secret is the secret? I remember watching a BBC documentary on Batman in 1989 (it featured Frank Miller, Denny O'Neill and Will Eisner!) that basically said Bill Finger had invented a lot of the important parts of the mythos. The doc also had Jerry Robinson talking about inventing the Joker -- and suggesting he did the lion's share in creating Robin.

It'll take a long time for the course-correction of acknowledging Finger in the same breath as Kane to become as ingrained in the public's consciousness as being able to rattle off Siegel/Shuster as Superman's creators.

Watched this today on Hulu. As a comic fan who has been active in the community for years I knew about Bill Finger's substantial contributions to Batman (basically that he created everything other than the name Bat-man), so this was a great documentary to see. I also liked the happy ending of finally getting Bill Finger the credit he deserves. Favorite line of the whole documentary was when Roy Thomas was talking about the checks the companies send out in the hopes to give thanks and hopefully avoid future lawsuits, "somewhere between creator credit and hush money." I'm curious why the credit is Created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger and what the distinction is between "with" and "and" which is what every other joint creation is listed as. As folks in this thread have said, with Finger's contributions a more accurate creator credit would be Batman created by Bill Finger with Bob Kane.

I'm curious why the credit is Created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger and what the distinction is between "with" and "and" which is what every other joint creation is listed as. As folks in this thread have said, with Finger's contributions a more accurate creator credit would be Batman created by Bill Finger with Bob Kane.

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Kane took far more credit than he deserved (even postmortem!) but he did knock over the first domino. That counts for something. Not as much as he thought it did -- especially as he tried to deny all the others who contributed -- but it put him in a position where he could legitimately claim than those others worked "with" him, later, not as part of the original act of creation.

Bill Finger was, undeniably, far more important to the creation of Batman as we know the character today, but from a legal standpoint, Kane could claim the character already existed (even if in very different form) before Finger became involved.

In Bob Kane's autobiography, "Batman and me," he wrote something to the effect that it was a shame that Bill Finger didn't get more credit while he was alive. If I had been drinking something when I read that, I would have done a spit-take! It was primarily Kane himself that denied Finger credit, and Kane did nothing to change that officially after Finger died. Yeesh!

I also recall a column by Mark Evanier in " The Comics Buyer's Guide" where Mark wrote of meeting Kane when Mark was a teen. He innocently asked Kane about the difference in the artwork in the Batman comics. This was at a time when DC was not giving credits in their comics for the creative teams, but there was the creator credit to Bob Kane in the Batman titles. According to Evanier, Kane became annoyed at the question claiming it was all his work. The funny thing is that Evanier wasn't asserting it was done by another artist, he just was curious why Batman looked different in some stories than some others.

I have mentioned many a time that "Bob Kane" had a huge influence on my neophyte artistic brain. Oblivious as I was to the notion of reprints or "ghosts" I assumed that Kane drew everything that bore his name, and changed his style to fit the demands of each story. (I noted that he seemed to use his BEST style mostly in the annuals.)*

This "Kane Kurse" remains, and leaves me questing for a distinct visual identity for each new project.

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